Fire flies and Memories

It's that time of year again.  A time when the night skies light up with the bio-luminescent mating signals of fireflies, the weather is warm in the day, but still cool at night and the mosquitoes are not yet out in full force.  As I walked my German Shorthair tonight I thought of this time last year and how anxious I was for opening day here in Tennessee....September 1st...It's the opening day of Dove season.  A treat which some throughout our great country do not get to partake in.  While I am jealous of the fact that I have to work so hard for grouse flushes here, compared to my northern counterparts, I do take solace in the fact that we have an excellent dove season compared to most places, outside of Argentina and a few other places of course.  For the US of A, this is pretty good dove hunting.  The last time I was out on a hunt I had a gentleman that was taking his first hunt in the South.  He asked "What are the power lines in the middle of the field for?"  "They don't even go anywhere!"  I got a chuckle out of that one and explained that they were just telephone poles with thick wire strung between them and that they were for the dove to land on.  He asked "You shoot them on the roost" to which I gave my complicated reply of "Yep."  We also shoot them in flight and even flush them off the ground...they love ditches in the country.  Tennessee isn't the best place for grouse, or quail but the dove is above average in my opinion, if you find a good field or two.   We have both banded and non-banded varieties.  I find the non-banded (mourning dove) the most beautiful and graceful of the two.  The next time you want to try something different, call around to some bird farms here in TN or perhaps call the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agencies and find out when and where to go.  I think you'll be surprised at how good it can be, if you just do a little research ahead of time.  Three months can't go by fast enough. 

Book Review - "The Fragrance of Grass" by Guy de la Valdene

This was an interesting book, that kept me interested most of the way.  It starts with Valdene's adventures as a boy hunting partridge, duck, and anything he could get a bead on in his home country of France.  He tells of driven hunts and European aristocratic hunting circles.  He gives a clear picture of what hunting would be like in France and adds quite a bit of humor to his stories.  I found the beginning of the book comical and interesting, as well as insightful.  The book goes on to transition to the United States and Canada and tells of his adventures in the Western US and Canada.  His descriptions of bird behavior, bird dogs, life on the road etc continue to make this an interesting read. I found quite a bit of information could be gleaned if I paid attention to the sections where he is actively hunting.  I would recommend this book to any person interested in bird hunting.  You can find it used on Amazon.com for a reasonable price.